Irsud

by Clayton, Jo;

  Eyebrows gently raised, Aleytys glanced at the attackers stacked like cordwood. “You’re more likely to get answers there,” she said softly.

  “Perhaps.” The kipu nodded toward the lift. “In any case, better discussed in private.”

  “No.” As the kipu’s meager face pursed into a heavy frown, Aleytys smiled again. “I’m filthy and tired. Any talking we have to do will wait till morning.” She shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll have milked these dry by then. Clear this place out, rab’ kipu. If guards are necessary, and I can’t dispute that after this, leave them out there.” She waved at the glass wall.

  The kipu frowned at her a minute, then nodded. Briskly she ordered a double hand of guards into the garden and another twelve into the hall, keeping back the last twelve to carry the bodies of the raiders to the interrogation center on the floor above.

  Within minutes the room was empty and quiet, the scattered sweet stinking blood smears the only reminder of the frantic battle. The kipu moved quietly to the lift. In the entrance, a black silhouette against the pale yellow light illuminating the small square room, she turned and gazed at Aleytys from eyes invisible except for elusive glints of reflected light. “We will talk tomorrow, Damiktana. Have your story ready but put a little truth in it.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  The kipu stepped inside and the door closed over her. Aleytys touched Burash lightly on the shoulder. “You all right?”

  Holding out his hand, he said, “Look. Shaking like a leaf after a winter storm.”

  “Otherwise?”

  “Tired, mauled, sore as a rotten tooth, but yes, I’m all right. I’m alive.” He dropped shakily onto the bed and pulled her down beside him. “How about you?”

  “About the same.” She ran her hands through her hair, wincing as they caught in tangles and tugged at her tender scalp. “That was close. I wonder why.…”

  “You’ve been making yourself noticed, Leyta.” He ran his fingers gently across her palms as he spoke. “The cityqueens are a greedy set of river pigs. You think they haven’t heard the rumors? Trust Gapp and Asshrud to get the news out to their pets. What did you expect?”

  “They, tried to kill me. What good would that do?”

  “Ask yourself. Does any of them love the kipu? Anything that lessens her power aggrandizes theirs. Of course … when I was sleeping didn’t they start to take you away?”

  “You’re right. They would have killed you, though.”

  “Why not. What am I?”

  “Ah. And we were drugged.”

  “What did I say? Gapp and Asshrud. The next month should be interesting.”

  “Ahai Madar!” She jerked upright and pounded a fist on her thigh.

  Burash looked startled. He swung around, antennas leaping with curiosity, colors flashing starkly in the dim light. “What is it?”

  “Nakivas. With guards on the wall.…”

  “Between the two of you.” He laughed. “You’ll think of something.” He bent over and sniffed at her skin. “You stink, Leyta. So do I.” He slid off the bed and held out his hand. “Shall we wash the grime off?”

  CHAPTER XVI

  Water. Rocking, endlessly cradling, “caressing her body, lifting but eternal, unchanging, floating, immersed in water yet distance was meaningless as time was meaningless, passing but eternal, unchanging, floating, immersed in water currents, bloodwarm, soaking, unhurried, slow, sensuous, suspended in mindless languor, body warm, drifting, arms, legs trailing, fluttering without volition, strands of red gold hair straying a time in neighboring currents so they dipped and surged in patterns before drowsy dreaming detached eyes.

  After an eon she roused enough to wonder dimly where, why, when. Golden bubbles separated from the dark water, dancing in complex circles around her body and her head, shedding a capricious shower of sparks into her eyes, marking her quiescent body with spangled flecks of glimmering gold darting in disturbing patterns over the mounds and shadowed hollows of her pale flesh.

  Another eon passed.

  She looked at her drifting hand and after a while lifted it, reaching for the dancing bubbles that stirred curiosity in her, tickling her out of her mindless dream. But they danced in mocking hilarity, soundless and elusive, away from her clumsy groping fingers, fingers moving with agonizing slowness. She let her fingers trail aimlessly through the water, abandoning the futile pursuit.

  Her lips opened. Permeated by the water her body was immersed wholly within, she found no difference, no sound. “Come,” she called soundlessly, coaxing the entrancing dancing bubbles.

  The word slid out into the water shining, shining, sound made visible slow and slow. She watched it slide through the water and touch the clusters of bubbles that sparkled brighter than ever. They danced closer, wheeling around and around, in, over, around her face until laughter rose in a fountain inside her. She lifted her slow hands again and let the fingers flicker through the bubbles and it seemed to her they laughed in answer, small bell sound tinkling in her head made visible in showers of polychromatic sparks falling like confetti over and around her then drifting off in threads of color that died away before they reached her distant trailing toes.

  An eon passed.

  As she willed it the glimmering bubbles wheeled in undulant circles around her hands rising and falling rhythmically like horses horses … horses … turning round and round.

  Horses. Galloping in packs over her stomach down her gently lifting and falling legs, leaping in elegant caracoles over her toes and sweeping back around, tiny glimmering gilded horses, glass horses with golden fires glowing at their hearts, rising, falling, light sparkles illuminating their sturdy barrels, bubble horses transparent as fine glass, prancing, leaping, galloping in precision teams around and around her body. She laughed in delight at the beauty of it then watched puzzled as the tiny horses melted again into bubbles flowing aimlessly around her.

  Her placid formless face drew together in a frown as she drove her reluctant mind to consider this strangeness.

  An eon passed.

  She opened her eyes. Bubbles hovered around her but it seemed to her the dancing lights were dimmer, the drifting sparks fewer. She willed them into a sphere hovering over her breasts. The lights brightened, steadied. The center of the sphere rested over her heart. She watched it. Willed it to an arrow point. Watched the point stand steady over her breasts. Sent the arrow point swooping and darting about her body answering like a well-trained horse to her will, acting like an extension of her body, another hand. She had it now, coming and going; she formed an image in her head and the glimmering gold bubbles danced to the calling of her tune. She willed the tiny horses back and laughed with delight as they galloped over the plains and hills of her naked body.

  An eon passed.

  While she lay absorbed in the enchanting capers of the pliant bubbles, the water flowed around her body, changing warm to cold and back.

  Sudden sensation of speed. The currents tossed her about, plunging her from one to the other, alternating unexpectedly … icy and bloodwarm … dip into the chilly ply: stimulus/shock/centricity … dip into the warm ply: relaxation/diffusion/outreach … wheeling haphazard, alert and dull, until her spirit was sick from the shock of changing.

  Chill shot through her body. Her feet slapped hard on cool ceramic tiles dim-lit. A corridor swept away from her blinking eyes in a long smooth curve irritatingly familiar. Green tiles underfoot … walk the silent corridor, search a reluctant mind for the reason in the feeling of familiarity. No answer. She was a facade, a lay figure animated by pseudo-life.

  A massive rough-cast bronze door. She drifted to a stop in front of it and stared blankly at a complex lock that crawled like a nest of worms over its middle. After a long blank time she lifted a hand and pressed it against the door, fingers spread out in a pale starfish against the dark rough metal that felt cold and resistant against the skin of her hand while the front of the door turned transparent as glass, answering her will as the bubble
s had. She saw tumblers sitting, squat trolls, in their tight niches.

  An eon passed.

  She stood stiff and still, arm outstretched, hand pressed against the metal until at last a slow idea awakened in her heavy mind. She willed the tumblers back … one by one … like the bubble horses … one by one they shifted; she could feel the heavy chunk-thunk through and through her bones then she pushed against the door. Slowly, massively, it slid open and she was drifting hesitantly inside, compelled inside without knowing why.

  She slid past stiff silent nayid guards, statue silent, no beating of the eight-node hearts, no rise and fall in the chest, no hissing intake outgo of air. She drifted, heavy unwieldy body driven on, floating strangely. She looked down.

  Her feet trailed into smoky wisps a handspan above the floor but in the thick, syrupy movement of her thought she registered this distantly, uninterestedly, the whole experience curiously remote … everything so strange that strangeness became normality.

  Weapons lined the walls of the interior room. She watched calmly as her hand reached out and plucked a small weapon from its pegs. It felt impossibly heavy in her straining hands, chill and.…

  She couldn’t bear being in the place any longer. The stench of death corroded her soul and she fled back the way she’d come.

  She stood in the hall, weapon clutched to her breast, her feet firm cold on the slick green tiles. She reached out and pulled the door shut. As her fingers slid over the rough metal it turned transparent and without really knowing why, urged to it by a deep-buried wild fear, she nudged the tumblers back into their locking niches, then fled down the hall, bare feet slip-slapping on the tiles, weapon clutched over her hammering heart.…

  The tiles turned blue-green. The guarding squad of sabutim stiff and alert in their blue-green tunics stood in her way in front of the archway screened by a heavy blue-green tapestry … heart thudding until her body ached with the pain of it, she crept up to them then was breathing again as their eyes stared unknowing through her.

  After wriggling carefully between them, she hesitated in front of the tapestry then slid through the narrowest opening she could fit herself through and nervously smoothed the tapestry back flat. Driven by a growing anxiety, a sense of urgency that flashed alternately hot and cold through her, she fled toward the bed.

  In the dim light filtering through the wall-window where the shielding tapestry was pulled back she could see the dark mass of the bed with the gauzy curtains like this fog around it. Moving slower and slower, with strange reluctance, she drew closer and stood staring with wide frightened eyes at the two forms cuddled close together in deep sleep.

  The woman’s red-gold hair fanned out over her naked shoulders, one breast bare, the silky blue-green cover clinging to the curled shape of her body. Next to her lay the strong compact form of Burash, his face even in sleep strained and tired. His antennas twitched raggedly, his fingers opened and closed spasmodically, his restless disturbed sleep serving to underline the depth and tranquility of Aleytys’ rest. She reached out and touched the sleeper’s shoulder.

  Aleytys sat up, blinking. Burash muttered and twitched beside her. She bent over him, letting her fingers travel over his face and neck, caressing him, the feel of his firm flesh warm and good in her fingertips flowing like firelight in winter through her body, for a moment masking all the tensions and fears of her life. “Rest, my own,” she murmured, and let the warmth flow from her to him.

  Burash’s face unknotted, his clenched hands relaxed, and he sank deeper into a healing, restoring sleep.

  She sighed and stretched. “What an odd dream.” She glanced back toward the open slit in the tapestry. “I wonder what time it is.” Yawning, she stretched, then she began to slide back down flat on the bed. Her hand struck a cold hard object. “Ahai, Madar,” she gasped. She slid the thing from under the cover and held it in her two hands, the weight of the thing testifying to its reality.

  It was the weapon from her dream.

  CHAPTER XVII

  Aleytys kicked her feet out and watched the bright yellow chiffon billow and flutter in the cool damp morning air. The yellow sun that she still found a little disturbing was a semi-arc above the gray stone of the wall with the patroling sabutim crossing it, their long narrow black shadows like prison bars blocking, it seemed to her, something of the sun’s too meager light and heat.

  The shadows in the garden wrote long thin hieroglyphs over the smooth cropped green of the lawn.

  Aleytys stroked the gun on her lap. Fingernails clicking on the hard surface of the weapon, she shifted her gaze to the singing water and contemplated the mottled stones at the bottom of the stream.

  In their smooth roundness they reminded her of the bubbles in her dream. As she stared down, they began to tumble around then crawled up onto the sandy shoulder of the stream as she urged them along until laughter bubbled in her head and she sent them capering about over the grass like small imps in a herdfolk dance.

  She called one to her and cried out as it came too strongly, glancing painfully off her cheek. She rubbed the small sting and stared thoughtfully at the scattered stones, then touched the gun in her lap, scraping her nails over the hard surface.

  She rubbed her nose then turned on the limb and looked over her shoulder at the bedroom. First she saw the wide expanse of glass sparkling brilliantly opaque in the direct light of the rising sun. Then the side of the building opened out for her, turned transparent like the bronze door and she could see inside, as if she were standing there, standing in the middle of the room. She moved her eyes along the face of the mahazh and peeled it open, peering in at Asshrud unwieldy, lumpish, mouth gaping open, snoring and somnolent, Gapp busy with a sycophant lover, Aleytys jerked her gaze away sick. The kipu next, bone thin and nude, sitting erect, muttering some complicated mantra … sabutim tending gear, making beds, pacing, feeling of military precision, finicky neatness.…

  Mind reeling under the impact of the kaleidoscopic images, she swayed precariously on her perch until the shock snapped her back to herself. She grabbed at her handhold then at the gun sliding from her lap. Turning the weapon over and over in her fingers, she examined the thing, slid her hand around the butt, stretched her finger along the side of it until she touched a fingernail-sized swing plate. She flicked it open and stared at a dull black sensor. She moved her finger toward it.

  “No!” Swardheld’s voice roared in her head nearly startling her into dropping the gun.

  “Helvete, woman, you want to bring the whole place down on your head?” As Aleytys resettled herself, he relaxed and chuckled. “Do you know what you’d do, touching that sensor?”

  Aleytys stared down at the heavy metal thing crushing the delicate material of her gown. “What does it do?”

  “Well, roughly.…” She felt his eyes looking down thoughtfully at the weapon, measuring it against a wealth of experience totally beyond her comprehension. “Looks to me like it’d just about punch a hole in that rock you were pointing it at big enough to shove a horse in.”

  She touched the weapon and shuddered. “Concentrated death. I wonder.…”

  “That’s how some men measure progress.” Harskari’s cool voice, amber-tinged, finished the thought for her. “In the more efficient killing of ever larger numbers of their fellow men.”

  Aleytys felt a cold sickness around her stomach, a heavy weight of depression on her spirit. She slid her hands underneath the energy gun and held it in front of her. “What do I do with the damn thing?”

  Harskari blinked her amber eyes. “Why did you bring it out of that room?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know why any of that happened last night.”

  “Well.” She thought a moment then nodded. “You have to hide it. You brought it out for some reason, don’t forget that; probably you’ll find some use for it later. But if the kipu finds it in your possession.…”

  “No.” Once again Aleytys shivered.

  The purple eyes opened and Shadi
th spoke with a calm finality that forbade any argument. “Nowhere in the mahazh, too many sensors. Up there.”

  “Where?”

  “The cliff. You see that narrow ledge a little higher than the top of the mahazh?”

  Aleytys scanned the rugged face of the cliff where it rose above the skirting of foliage at its base. “Yes,” she said after a while. “Is that the one you mean?” She fixed her eyes on the short horizontal break in the cliff face.

  “You got it. You two agree?” Shadith’s purple eyes turned from one side to the other, questioning.

  “Yes,” Harskari said thoughtfully. “If Aleytys can lift that far.”

  “I can try.”

  “Hm. Yes.” Swardheld’s burring voice muttered in reluctant agreement. “It’s an unhandy place, though.”

  “That’s the point, old grumbler.” A twinkle in the purple eyes matched a delicate ripple of laughter. “Who’d look there?”

  Aleytys moved the cover back over the trigger-sensor and frowned, stroking fingers slowly over the smooth metal. As she concentrated, the weapon came alive under her hands. First she felt it grow warm, then it wiggled, startling her again, then bumped lightly against her hand. When it bumped harder she spread out her hands like wings and the weapon leapt up between them, sweeping toward the cliff in a rapidly accelerating curve that panicked her.

  With a gasp she jerked the hurtling gun to a stop a bare handspan from a spattering crash against the stone. Halting, clattering, bounding, it edged in jerky stages up the cliff, scraping noisily against the irregular surface. Gradually control came easier to her until finally she tucked the weapon neatly into the crevice. With a sigh, she relaxed, leaning back against the limb, crossing her ankles and letting her hair blow around her face.

  “Well, that’s done,” she murmured.

  Purple eyes glowed and light laughter glinted silver in her head. “There once was a red-headed lass whose multiple talents had class. She flipped in the air six eggs and a chair, two horses, five hogs, three cream-colored dogs, four hens, two cats and a hare.”